


Chicken Thief

by royal_enchanter



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, It was the dog, M/M, Meet-Cute, Not Beta Read, That One Fic Where They're In The Green Uni But It's Not A Plot Point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28379283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_enchanter/pseuds/royal_enchanter
Summary: Sometimes your dog has more game than you do.Enter Hirugami Sachirou and his Shiba, Koutarou.HQ Filo Week Day 7: Free Day
Relationships: Hirugami Sachirou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34
Collections: HQ Filo Week Fic Collection





	Chicken Thief

Sachirou always enjoys early mornings with Kou. Now, don’t get him wrong. He hates waking up at 6 am for 7:30 classes just as much as any college student but seeing his beloved red-haired Shiba sitting next to his bed with a smile and his tongue out, brings a smile to his face that overcomes any annoyance he has about being awake. It’s only been two weeks since classes have started back but Sachirou could already feel the effects of being awake so early. He kind of regrets taking up morning classes but the fact that it left his afternoons open meant that he could bring Kou to the Triangle or even to BGC if he felt like it. 

His first year in DLSU was a test in coping, seeing as he was away from his family and his Shiba. At first, he tried to go home every day but the Alabang-Taft travel was a disaster and he just couldn’t do it. He got a condo in Torre 2 because he knows they’re pet-friendly and that Kou could visit him on the weekends. Juggling new subjects and meeting new people eventually grated on Sachirou.

He missed Kou so much in his first year that during the break between his first and second year, he broke down and begged his parents to let him bring Kou back to his condo. Sachirou praised every deity he could think of that his precious Kou was within the restrictions the condo management had on pets. He’s had to give up on wearing blacks for the foreseeable future but it’s a small price to pay to have his dog with him.

As he stretches and gets out of bed, Kou greets him with a soft bark. He rubs at his eyes to get rid of the remaining sleepiness and rubs Kou’s head as he heads to the kitchen area. He opens the fridge to grab Kou’s food that he had been thawing since last night. Sachirou looks at the package he grabbed to make sure that it was the chicken and not the turkey that was Kou’s dinner. Seeing the correct package, he takes out the food bowl from the cabinet and places the food in it. He calls out to Koutarou and the Shiba walks up to him quickly.

“Wait,” he tells Kou while he crouches down to place the food bowl on the rug next to the fridge. “Go on then, Kou. Breakfast.”

As soon as Kou hears the word, he heads straight to the food bowl. Sachirou smiles at the little howls that Kou let out as he eats just like when he was a puppy. It never fails to brighten up Sachirou’s mood seeing his pup just enjoying life. He rubs Kou’s head one more time before he straightens up and heads to the bathroom for his morning ablutions.

Once finished in the bathroom and dressed for the day, he heads back to the kitchen and sees Kou sitting on his haunches waiting for him. He goes to grab some food of his own from the fridge and sits on the barstool at the counter. Today’s breakfast is yoghurt and oats, with some of the honey he has on his counter. Looking at his food reminds him of the jokes he makes that his dog eats better than him most of the time. He lets out a laugh and pats his lap to call his dog over to him. Kou immediately comes closer and drapes his body on Sachirou’s feet.

He looks at the clock hanging from his wall and sees that it’s already 6:45 am. He stands up from his seat and Kou raises his head and moves away in response. Sachirou moves to his desk and grabs the bag he placed by its side. He double-checks that he has everything he needs for his three classes and once satisfied, he closes it up and grabs his phone and keys. He checks that there’s enough water in Kou’s bowl for the next six hours and heads to the door. As soon as he opens the door, he turns back and crouches down and calls out to Kou. The dog comes closer and sits in front of him, his tongue sticking out as he pants.

“Now,” he tells the dog. “Be a good boy while I’m in class and we’ll go to the park later okay?” 

Kou responds with a bark and licks Sachirou’s face. Sachirou simply laughs and rubs at his dog's head. He goes to shut his door when his phone rings. He sees the name Aikichi flash and picks up.

“What’s up?”

“Dude,” Sachirou takes note of the slight panicky tone in his friend’s voice and wonders whether he’s going to end up doing for him. “The professor’s here early and she’s going to give out instructions on the final paper before class starts. You better get your ass here quickly.”

Too caught up in what Aikichi was saying, Sachirou fails to notice Kou nudging the door a little wider and squeezing his way out. The little Shiba headed straight for the neighbouring unit whose door was wide open, his nose high up in the air, sniffing.

“Shit. But class starts at 7:30 what is she even thinking?”

“I really can’t tell you, dude. Everyone already said she’s a terror so just get over here quickly!”

“I’m going, I’m going,” he tells the Aikichi. He quickly closes his condo’s door and calls out a goodbye to Kou before heading to the elevators. He’s suddenly thankful that one of the perks of morning classes is that fewer people were using the elevators. He rushes through the lobby, waits for the signal at the crossing to turn green, and heads straight to the Henry gate. 

He lines up to pass through security and waits for people to finish. Eventually, he places his bag on the x-ray machine and passes through the metal detector that he’s always thought was kind of ridiculous. He grabs his bag, turns the turnstile, and scans his ID. The guard greets him a good morning and he simply smiles, his mind focused on getting to his room as quick as possible.

He heads to Velasco and runs up the stairs to the third floor. He speedwalks to 304 and breathes a sigh of relief when he sees the professor still on her laptop. He passes through the door at the back and sees Aikichi gesturing to him. He sits next to his friend and asks, “she hasn’t said anything yet?”

“Nope,” was the immediate reply. “I think she’s waiting for a couple more people to get in before she says anything.”

Sachirou raises an eyebrow at that and looks around the classroom. Velasco rooms have never been the most spacious but it didn’t look like it with the number of people in his class at the moment. He knows that this class was supposed to be at maximum cap since the department only opened two sections for their college. 

“You know,” he leans to the side to whisper to Aikichi, “I don’t think she’s going to say anything about the paper itself. Maybe she’s gonna say something about extra points or bonus questions or other things like that. It’s probably just one of those scare tactics.”

Aikichi hums and says in a noncommittal tone, “maybe.”

Sachirou merely leans back on his chair at that. He accidentally leans back too much that his chair rolls a little but he quickly drags it back to position. He takes out his phone and some earphones from his bag and taps on one of the playlists he sees on Spotify. He leans his head back and stares at the ceiling as the music plays on his phone, head empty of thoughts. 

A few minutes later, Aikichi pulls at his earphones and he hears the professor start to talk. His hunch was proven correct and she just talks about bonus points for the paper and some extra questions that they could answer as extra credit. She finishes explaining as the bell rings and the rest of his classmates trickle in. 

The rest of the class passes by in the blur. Sociology is interesting on paper but with the professor he got, it was simply something he had to bear with. He takes down notes and adds what the professor says on the side as additional info but nothing registers in his brain. 

Next thing he knows, the bell’s ringing and everyone’s packing up their things. The professor says some last-minute reminders for the readings she left at the photocopy station at SJ near the Faculty Centre as the class rushes out the doors.

Sachirou takes his time though and places everything back in his bag. He has his phone in one hand as he stands up from his chair and follows Aikichi out the doors. He opens up the Furbo app from his phone to greet Kou when his blood runs cold. He stops in his tracks in the middle of the hallway. Aikichi turns to look at him when he notices Sachirou not walking next to him, and sees the pale face of his friend.

He walks back quickly and says, “Sach, what’s wrong? You’re all pale.”

Sachirou blinks quickly and looks at Aikira and says, “Kou’s not in my unit.”

Aikira’s eyes widen and he utters a quiet, “oh shit.”

Sachirou starts to feel his heartbeat faster in panic. He manipulates the camera to look at his entire condo but there was no sign of his Shiba. He calls out to Kou but there was no bark in response. He feels lightheaded all of a sudden and hears Aikichi call out to him.

“Sach! Sach! SACHIROU!”

He snaps out of it at the shout and takes note of the fact that they were still standing in the middle of the hallway. He looks at Aikichi and his friend drags him to the side.

“Look, you have a break, right? Just go back to your condo and check whether Kou’s there. Maybe he fell asleep under your bed again, you know he does that often.”

Sachirou takes a deep breath and says, “yeah. Yeah. I’ll-uh, I’ll go do that.”

“Text me if you need help okay?” Aikira says to him, his tone serious. “I’ll cut class if you need me.” 

Aikira cuts off Sachirou before he could even tell his friend to stay in class. “Kou’s important to you and you’re my friend. I’ll help in any way I can.”

Sachirou simply nods and dashes off back to his condo. 

The universe must be listening to Sachirou since he catches the elevator right before it closes. He taps his foot impatiently as the numbers go up and run out as soon as it hit 17 and the doors open. He heads straight for his unit and unlocks his door. He calls out to Kou and closes the door, dropping his bag by the coat rack. 

There was no response.

Panic starts to settle in him before he remembers to ask his neighbours if they’ve seen Kou anywhere. It wasn’t like the dog could’ve gone far since the door to the stairwell was a pull door. He goes to the next unit to his right and knocks forcefully. He knocked several times before he heard an “I GET IT! I’M COMING! HOLD YOUR HORSES! JESUS!”

The door opened harshly and Sachirou was greeted by green eyes and shockingly white hair. He stands there dumbly for a few seconds just looking at his neighbour, taken aback by how good looking the other man was. He snaps out of it when his neighbour snaps his fingers in front of his face and says in an annoyed voice, “Dude you kept banging on my door and now you’re not saying anything what the fuck is wrong with you.”

“Uh-” Sachirou interrupts himself and shakes his head clear. “I just wanted to ask you if you’ve seen my Shiba. He’s not in my apartment and I was wondering if maybe you’ve seen him.”

“Shiba?” His neighbour asks. “Does it have a red coat and likes to eat grilled chicken?”

Sachirou blinks at the weirdly specific question but answers in the affirmative anyway.

His neighbour sighs and opens his door wider. “You might as well come in.”

Sachirou bewilderedly follows his neighbour into the unit and closes the door behind him.

“My name’s Kourai by the way,” his neighbour- no, Kourai - says as he walks to the “bedroom”. He uses the term bedroom loosely since it seems like there was just a divider placed between the bed the rest of the unit. His confusion is answered by a loud bark coming from the bedroom.

Kourai comes out with Kou in his arms and the Shiba wiggles once he sees Sachirou. He barks and pants in Kourai’s arms. Kourai puts down the dog and Sachirou crouches down and hugs Kou up as soon as the Shiba runs up to him. Kou licks both his cheeks and Sachirou just laughs in relief.

“I think he ran into my unit when I left the door open. I was taking out my trash and didn’t want to look for my keys so I left it open. He probably sniffed out the chicken I made.”

Sachirou just laughs at his neighbour’s theory. He lets go of Kou once the dog stops licking his face and stands up to face Kourai. He holds out his hand and says, “Let me introduce myself then, neighbour. My name’s Sachirou. And this guy’s name is Kou.”

Kourai shakes his hand and says, “well now we know each other!”

Sachirou laughs at that.

Kourai drops down and scratches behind Kou’s right ear. “So this guy’s name is Kou, huh?”

“Yeah,” Sachirou replies. “It’s short for Koutarou but I usually just call him Kou.”

“Well, I’ll just keep calling him chicken thief,” Kourai says jokingly as he looks up at Sachirou. “Since he ate my chicken this morning and I had to go and cook again.” 

Kourai looks back at Kou and makes funny faces at the dog. Sachirou feels his face heat up at that and before his brain could catch up his mouth opens and says, “Let me take you out later for dinner then.”

Kourai’s head snaps up to Sachirou and his eyes look straight the Sachirou’s. He kind of feels like one of his biology experiments that were placed under a microscope and stifled the urge to fidget.

“As thanks,” he hurries to explain. “And maybe as sorry for Kou stealing your food.”

“Oh,” Kourai almost sounds disappointed and Sachirou didn’t know how to process that. “Yeah, sure. We could go for dinner later. I still have class until 4 pm though, is that fine?”

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely.” 

Kourai gives him a wide smile and Sachirou feels his breath get stuck in his throat. Kourai stands up and says, “I’ll see you here later then? Just knock on my door at like, 5?”

Sachirou just nods and follows Kourai as he heads to the door. He walks out and stands in front of Kourai’s unit. It took him a few seconds before he was able to say, “Uh-yeah. 5 pm. I’ll knock. Uh-okay.”

Kourai looks at Sachirou but it seems like the other man took pity at Sachirou’s awkwardness and smiled. Sachirou just nods before heading back to his unit, Kou walking next to him. He opens his door and before he closes it, he raises his hand and waves at Kourai. The other man waves back in response and closes his door.

As soon as he closes his door, Sachirou leans against it and slides down to the floor. Kou sits next to him and licks at his face. Sachirou sighs at that and scratches Kou’s ruff.

“That was a disaster, Kou. He was just so gorgeous and his eyes were sparkling when he was looking at you.” He holds Kou’s face in front of him, eyes looking straight at his dog’s. “You’re a mischief-maker, but it looks like you just got me a not-a-date date with our hot neighbour so I’ll let you off the hook this time. Seriously, how can you have more game than I do? He was spoiling you rotten judging on where you were in his unit.”

Kou just barks in response.

Sachirou smiles at Kou and says in a scolding voice, “next time you pull this kind of thing, you’re not getting any treats for a week.”

Sachirou lets out a sigh at Kou’s reaction to the “treat” part of his sentence. “Amazing how you only paid attention to the “treat” and completely ignored the “no” part.”

He stands up and brushes off his jeans and tells Kou, “Oh, who am I even kidding you’ll still do whatever you want. I just have to make sure you’re actually in here when I close the door I guess.”

Kou simply runs around his legs and barks up at him.

“Well, it looks like I have a not-a-date date later after class.” He looks down at Kou with a stern face and says, “I gotta get back to class so make sure to stay here you little mischief-maker.”

Kou didn’t even bark in response and just jumps up on Sachirou’s bed and lays down to nap. Sachirou thinks to himself that Kou has the right idea but he still has classes to go to before he could even consider taking a nap. He walks toward the bed and runs his hand through Kou’s fur. He goes back to the door and grabs his bag. He peeks at Kou to make sure he’s still on the bed as he closes his door.

Two more classes. He can do this. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can scream at me about this story or anything bout Haikyuu on my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/royal_enchanter). 
> 
> If you guys liked it, the fic graphic is [here](https://twitter.com/royal_enchanter/status/1343933123260686337?s=21).


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